Black Roses
by arliddian
Summary: Once upon a time, their love bloomed like roses...but tragedy painted it black. AniAmi vignette.


**Black Roses**

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Summary:** Once upon a time, their love bloomed like roses…but tragedy painted it black. AniAmi vignette. 

**Timeframe:** Prequels

**Archive:** In the unlikely event that someone would actually want to archive this – ask and I'll say yes. Just let me know where it's going.

**Disclaimer:** All things recognisably Star Wars belong to George Lucas. I just like making up my own stories. ALL HAIL LUCAS!

**A/N:** This is a vignette that I came up with after a discussion with friends about black roses. I've often felt that Anakin and Padmé's romance was like a tragic fairytale, hence the minor theme of a fairytale. Please R&R.

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Once upon a time… _

On the lovely planet of Naboo, Padmé, a beautiful young senator, fell in love with a handsome Jedi named Anakin. The Jedi had loved her for years, ever since they had met on the desert of Tatooine – even though it was forbidden for Jedi to love.

They shared their first kiss at the beautiful resort on Naboo, with the roses blooming and nodding their scarlet heads at them. But the senator turned away, knowing – as the Jedi did – that their relationship was forbidden. They decided to keep from falling in love.

But their love was too strong to be suppressed. Just before they entered the Geonosian arena to be executed, Padmé confessed her love to Anakin – and their joint fates were sealed with a sweet kiss. Only days later, they were married at the same resort where they first kissed, as the fading roses drenched the air with their heady perfume – a scent that filled the lovers with its sweetness.

_Maybe they should have been black._

After their wedding, the Jedi was often called away to serve in the terrible Clone Wars raging across the galaxy. Padmé worried about her husband, and her heart constantly ached in his absence. Even though they occasionally stole moments together on Coruscant, one or the other of them would be called away all too soon – she by senatorial business and he by Jedi duties. Yet they still found time to be together and live snatches of time as simply husband and wife, just another couple very much in love.

One night, Anakin snuck home after returning early from a mission in the Outer Rim territories. He let himself into their home and simply sat by the bed, watching his wife's stomach rise and fall with her breathing as she slept. He couldn't help reaching out and lightly stroking her smooth cheek, and she woke up with a start. As soon as her sleepy eyes fixed upon her handsome husband, her whole face lit up. He presented her with a small bouquet of roses he had bought specially for her, just like the ones that had bloomed and faded at their wedding. They shared a sweet, passionate kiss that spoke of their love and longing for one another. In the morning, Padmé arranged the bouquet in a vase on her bedside table. For days after that night they spent together, the roses nodded their warm blossoms at her every morning when she awoke without her husband by her side, reminding her of the love and beauty of her marriage.

_Maybe they should have been black._

Not long afterwards, Padmé discovered she was pregnant. When Anakin returned, she told him the joyous news. However, the celebration was tainted when the Jedi Knight began to have visions of his wife dying in childbirth. Determined to sav her, he turned his back on the Jedi and joined the Dark Side, becoming a Sith named Darth Vader. Under the instruction of the evil Chancellor Palpatine, Vader killed the Jedi and travelled to Mustafar to destroy the Separatists. Upon hearing the terrible news, Padmé met him there and tried to reason with him, tears streaking her cheeks. But nothing she said could deter him from his chosen path, as he believed that his new powers could save her. Alas, his love for her had blinded and misguided him to believing a lie. Obi-Wan had snuck aboard Padmé's ship, and when Anakin saw him, he became enraged. Believing his beloved wife had betrayed him, the Sith used the Force to choke her, and she fell unconscious to the ground. He went on to attack his former Master, but he was overpowered and left, horrifically wounded and scarred, for Palpatine to find him.

Padmé was taken to Polis Massa, where she gave birth to twins, Luke and Leia. But she could not go on to be their mother – the loss of her beloved husband to the Dark Side served as a fatal blow to her mind and heart. She had only strength to whisper, "There is still good in him", and then Padmé slipped away into the shadows of the unknown.

Her funeral took place on her home planet of Naboo. Her casket was strewn with flowers, and even in death her beauty glowed. Entwined in her fingers was the chain on which hung the japor snippet Anakin had carved for her. She had borne away her tragic love for her husband with her. Just before her coffin was closed and lowered into the ground, her mourning family placed a single rose on her body. The rose was a pure and perfect white, glowing in the light of the candles the mourners held.

_Maybe it should have been black._

Roses have long been the symbol of love and passion, romance that is pure and beautiful, with a sweet essence that lingers on. Black has long represented tragedy and death, the loss of innocence and purity and light. Black roses signify the tragedy o romance – still beautiful and sweet, but tainted with death and loss. They are the flowers of this tale of a Senator and her husband – a beautiful love born forbidden and grown in secret, ending finally in the death of one and the loss of the other's soul.

Yet still the perfume of their love lingered on in the lives of two children…two children who grew up to defeat the evil and bring light back into the galaxy.

_And they lived happily ever after..._


End file.
